Managing spatial sustainability trade-offs: The case of wind power

The deployment of onshore wind power involves spatial sustainability trade-offs, e.g., between the minimization of energy system costs, the mitigation of impacts on humans and biodiversity, and interregional equity concerns. We analyze challenges arising for decision-making if wind power generation capacity has to be allocated spatially in the presence of such trade-offs. The analysis is based on a participatory multi-criteria analysis that involved stakeholders in Germany. Stakeholders were asked to play a serious game during which they had to allocate wind power generation capacity to German states. The results of the serious game illustrate that there is no unanimously agreed ranking of sustainability criteria among the participating stakeholders. They disagreed not only on the weights of different criteria but also their definition and measurement. Group discussions further revealed that interregional equity concerns mattered when generation capacity was allocated to states. Yet, stakeholders used quite different concepts of interregional equity, including approaches of both distributional and commutative justice. The results support the importance of transparent, multi-level and participatory approaches to take decisions on the spatial allocation of wind power generation capacity. •The spatial allocation of wind power deployment involves sustainability trade-offs.•A serious game is used to analyze how stakeholders weigh allocation criteria.•Results show significant disagreement regarding the weights of different criteria.•Stakeholders consider interregional equity an important criterion for allocation.